Audi prepares to join the hypercar party

The head of Audi Sport, Stephan Winkelmann, has revealed that he and his “people” are looking at the feasibility of building a supercar capable of rivaling the Mercedes-AMG Project One and Aston Martin Valkyrie. Winkleman, who was previously CEO at Lamborghini, was speaking at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show.

When asked if Audi were planning a hypercar, Winkleman said: “In my opinion yes, it’s clear that we have developed the R8 completely – but it’s a very young car with a long life cycle, we will have derivatives. And then we have to enlarge our product portfolio.

“We will go from 11 to 16 cars in the next three years, this is a major effort but the halo car, the repositioning car, is something my people are thinking about. I have my ideas, they have theirs, we have to see when there is enough space to do something like this. But to be sure this brand deserves something like this.”

The project is clearly in its early days, with no clear clues as to the tech direction. It can be speculated that the chances of the hypercar being electric are fairly high as the VW Group recently released their Roadmap E strategy – a promise to offer an electric or hybrid version of each of its new vehicles by 2030. In fact, it would make perfect sense for Volkswagen to use the hypercar project as a high profile showcase for its electrification intentions.